I have been busy. I watched a video by Doctor Puppet on You tube about how she made her Doctor Who stop motion show Doctor Puppet. I have been very jealous of her, cause 1. she got a Doctor Who stop mo in before I did and 2. She is REALLY really good at it. Much better than me. Of course, she is a professional, has has formal training, and knows what she is doing, but hey, that is where I want to be SO badly.

Anyway, she posted a video on how she constructed the Doctor puppet. I have watched many, many armature construction videos, but hers made the most sense to me. So I decided to give it a whirl. I really want some more videos done before I attend and do panels at Orycon. As my iPad camera does not do macro well, I need bigger puppets if I am going to use it as my camera until I can afford a new one. So I guess the worse that can happen is I fail miserably. And I didn't. Kind of.

So she made her head out of an aluminum foil ball covered in Sculpy, with a piece of the larger square brass tubing in the bottom to allow for the neck to be placed in it. This is my version here. She did not put any "bones" on her armature, but I know my limitations. I think I need them to help keep the joints bending at a natural place. I made them out of Sculpy too. While those were baking I made the chest and torso. She made those out of epoxy putty with pieces of the larger square brass tubing for the neck, arms, waist and legs. I ran out of epoxy putty after the torso, so I used the extra firm Sculpy. Probably not a good idea, but I plan on getting more for the next one, so I will do it all out of epoxy putty then. I just couldn't find more within walking distance, and didn't feel up to traipsing around town on the bus for it.

Next I painted the head. I did not realize I got enamel paint. It is a bit shiny. But it looked good after I was done. I got some matte acrylic paint to use for the next one. If I really want to try animating with this one I can use face powder to cut down on the shine.

So....here she is partially done. The chest is on backwards, but you get the idea. I put pices of the smaller square brass tubing on the ends of the arms and legs, and I took a piece of twisted wire and glued more brass to it to use as a waist. I want her to be able to bend in a realistic way.

Next step was to glue hair on the head. I went down to the local Hirons and bought a $5 fake mullet wig. Very cheesy, not easy to work with. I couldn't find rubber cement like she suggested, so I decided to use contact cement. For the record, these are not the same thing. For one thing, contact cement melts enamel paint. It melts it fast and almost back to a liquid state. This was a problem when gluing on the hair. A big one.

The hair came with some pieces serged on the ends. I decided to work with it and use the serged parts as the glue points. I also thought about how doll's hair is attached. It is usually attached in circles. I thought I would just glue a larger outer circle, then another inner smaller circle, then a smaller one until it filled the space. Along with fighting the melting enamel paint to get the hair to stay, I also had to fight the direction of the hair. It is fakey fake nylon threads. It does not want to move in a direction other than straight. I planned on gluing the stitching on inwards, then flip the hair back over it to cover it. Might have worked better if it were real hair.

Here is the gluing in progress. If you look closely at the bottom you can see it pulling up and the paint melting. I ended up letting it dry, repainting spots and touching up the loose ends with rubber cement. It turned out ok.

Here it is completed. As you can see, there are lumps in the hair cause it didn't want to bend. In my haste to fix the melting glue I also missed some coverage. But I found if I put it back in a pony tail and fiddled with it I could cover the bare spots believably. I did end up cutting about an inch off the length of the hair. I figured it would make it less heavy....pull less on those possibly weak glue points.

So next was to make hands and feet. I decided I wanted to stick with magnets for my anchor method. She uses bolts, which are fine but leave holes in the set that I haven't figured out how to get rid of. Also, I only have a flat table. It isn't practical to try to drill through the whole table. I have a couple pieces of sheet metal I intend to use for the base of my set. So when I was making the feet, I molded them out of the extra firm Scuply and made a notch in the bottom to fit the magnets. I also added a bit of brass tubing to attach it to the leg.

The hands were more difficult. I think I will try another method for the hands. It was clumsy and hard to do, and looks pretty bad. There is a tutorial on the intertubes for making stop motion puppet hands out of florist wire and liquid latex. I am going to try that next. Cause look here....this is just bad....

The rest turned out fine, but the hands are just...not ok. I also had issue with my liquid latex. It went rancid between the time I bought it and the time I wanted to use it. It smelled really really bad and had chunks in it. I tried to use it anyway. The downside was I dropped some on my sandal. I washed it off right away, but now that sandal smells like rancid latex. I had to toss it. Could not get rid of the reek. I also bought more liquid latex.

Also...something creepy happened while I was baking the chest part. See that red thing? It looks like a heart. I did not put that there. That side was up when I baked it. It kind of showed up there. I suppose it is fine, but weird. When you burn Sculpy it turns red. But that part wasn't any higher then the rest of it. I don't know why it did it. So next step is to find some foam and make a chest and tummy, then sew some clothes for her. I plan on cutting felt mouths that will stick on with handitak. I learned a lot from making this puppet. I will make a few more then experiment with animating them.

I plan on going to get more epoxy putty and seeing if that makes a difference. I also plan on getting real hair hair extensions to use for the hair on the next one, see if it helps.

And last but not least, this is my new toy. It is a cabasa. For our Orycon concert we are doing a filk to In the Summertime, a Mungo Jerry song. I was having issues getting a good rhythm with the skull shakers for that one, so when I found this online for cheap I snatched it up. We have a rehearsal tomorrow. I will see how well it works then. :)

Okey dokey, that was my little experiment. Still working on it. Feel free to throw suggestions my way for how to make this puppet work better. I think I am well on my way finally to doing real stop mo.

Now that I have the script done, I need voice actors to record the dialog. I was going to try to do at least one of the voices, but I am still not up for it yet. When I talk too much I lose the ability to use my upper lip. Which is slightly disturbing, but still close enough to the actual injury I don't think it is permanent. Yet. But I need to get to animating, and I need to have the audio to go off of first. I have no idea where to find voice actors. I made an appeal to friends first. Tomorrow I think I am going to talk to my acting coach at the college. He is a nice guy. He may be able to help me find people. Unfortunately I can't afford to pay anyone, so that may limit my poole a bit.

So...while I am waiting for responses, I have been playing with making my own puppets. Here is what I have so far....

The bare wire armature....sans head. I used 18 gauge wire doubled on itself and twisted. I used a hand crank drill to twist it.

And the armature with "bones" added. I used epoxy putty for this. I also added a neck. I plan to sculpt a head out of an old wine cork.

I am just waiting for the epoxy putty to harden. I have decided I hate the stuff. It was suggested on several sites and blogs, so I thought I would try it. For one thing, it stops being workable after 2 minutes. Which means you have to work quickly. This wasn't close to what I wanted it to look like, but I didn't have time to sculpt it. It also feels a bit heavy. I worry that the wire joints might bow under the weight. It is also stinky and expensive. And sticky. I have it all over my hands. I couldn't get it all off. Well, we'll see how this goes. I am thinking of trying balsa and gorilla glue for bones next time. I also have pine fancy craft sticks. I might see what I can do with those. Though I would still have to figure out the torso and hips.

Ok...off to find foam build up instructions. I have some old cushions I am tearing apart for this. I also have some flat foam sheets that came inside other stuff I bought.....a long time ago. Again, I am not a craft hoarder. :P

EDIT: That....went horribly, horribly wrong. Mainly because I have NO idea what I am doing. The foam refused to stick, and then it refused to sculpt, which did not help my already piss-poor sculpting skills. So now I have a boned armature with a half sculpted cork head attached to my desk lamp by magnets in it's very very very undersized feet.

I suppose I could have made another post about this, but frankly I just want to hide under the bed. I need to whine, and I don't want to be obvious. So there is the evidence of my fail. Well, partial. I removed the fail foam. I am currently thinking of alternatives. It may be that I will never be able to create my own characters. Or maybe I need to find a design and/or medium that I can work with. I don't think I will ever find a person who will just teach me. I have no money, and there are no Stop Motion schools. In fact, very few schools teach stop motion at all, and that is usually in the context of drawn animation. SOB